


An Antique Roman

by h311agay



Category: Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare, Original Work
Genre: Analytical Essay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5075488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h311agay/pseuds/h311agay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the podcast becomes better known, more is spoken by Cecil Baldwin in Welcome to Nightvale. In one podcast, Cecil tells his listeners, “Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won't. This is what love is” (Baldwin). Throughout the play of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the main protagonist, Hamlet, is forced to build, end, and question all the relationships that he knows, once knew, and will ever know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Antique Roman

**Author's Note:**

> In my Honors Enlgish 12 class, we read the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare. I had to write an analytical essay on the play. I asked if I could analyse Hamlet and Horatio's relationship and was given the okay to do so. This whole essay focuses primarily on how I believe Horatio to be Hamlet's love interest, not Ophelia. Thank you for reading and just let me apologise ahead of time for the poor conclusion.
> 
>  
> 
> Edit: I'd like to inform you all that my essay has been graded and I received a 95% on it!

As the podcast becomes better known, more is spoken by Cecil Baldwin in _Welcome to Nightvale_. In one podcast, Cecil tells his listeners, “Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won't. This is what love is” (Baldwin). Throughout the play of _Hamlet_ by William Shakespeare, the main protagonist, Hamlet, is forced to build, end, and question all the relationships that he knows, once knew, and will ever know. Many of them fall apart before his eyes:  His own father is killed, his uncle is the murdered, and his mother loses touch with him. The object once center of his infatuation, Ophelia, rejects and ignores him. His friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, quickly agree to spy on him, revealing to Hamlet how little their friendship truly meant. Despite his seemingly ever growing insanity and obsession to end his uncle’s life, there is one person to never turn on him:  Horatio. This knowledge perpetuates and gives fodder to the theory that Hamlet and Horatio were more than just simple friends, even going as far to say that they have exceeding any form of friendship and have instead ascended into a coupling such as lovers.

At the beginning of the play, Horatio is convinced by two guards, Barnardo and Marcellus, to come stand watch with them and be witness to the entity that has been approaching them in the dark of night. After seeing the ghost and confirming that it resembled the late King Hamlet, Horatio resolves to inform Hamlet. It is in this confrontation, that Shakespeare reveals that Hamlet holds Horatio as high in his mind as Horatio holds Hamlet. The play does not touch on how close Hamlet is to Bernardo and Marcellus, but it hints that there is a possibility that Hamlet would not have been encouraged to stand guard and look for his father’s phantom if it had been one of them to speak of their witness to the apparition. The fact that it was Horatio that relayed the news and not just the two guards gives way to believe that Hamlet cares about Horatio’s word far more than another’s. The way Horatio and Hamlet speak to each other is done in a far more affectionate way than any of Hamlet’s other confrontations. “Hamlet:  I am glad to see you well. Horatio-- or I do forget myself. Horatio:  The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. Hamlet:  Sir, my good friend. I’ll change the name with you” (Shakespeare, 2004, p. 46). It is hard to understand what exactly they are saying to each other, but after greeting, Horatio more or less claims himself less than Hamlet. To which Hamlet denies, almost begging Horatio to let himself take the name of servant. There are no other incidents were a scholar or servant speak to Hamlet or any of the other royals in such a manner. Nor are there any incidents where Hamlet asks that the commoner to view him just as humble as them. He has a very familiar way of speaking to Horatio. When Horatio tells Hamlet that he’s witnessed Old King Hamlet’s ghost, the average person would claim insanity and turn the person away. Instead, Hamlet prompts Horatio to speak further, “Hamlet:  The King my father?... For God’s love let me hear!” (Shakespeare, 2004, p. 50). He does not strike down Horatio’s words or claim him a lunatic. However, with how little he acknowledges Marcellus and Bernardo and how formal they are towards him, it is possible to believe that he only found truth in Horatio’s words because the two are much closer than at first thought. When Hamlet accompanies Horatio and the guards to determine whether or not the ghost is truly his father, Horatio is the voice of reason that almost reaches Hamlet when he follows the ghost. “Horatio:  Do not, my lord… What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff… The very place puts toys of desperation, without more motive, into every brain that looks so many fathoms to the sea and hears it roar beneath… Be ruled. You shall not go” (Shakespeare, 2004, p. 73). Albeit, Marcellus also warns Hamlet not to follow the ghost, he does it only once, not giving his reason and not protesting until after Horatio has spoken. Through his words, Horatio shows that he cares deeply for and about Hamlet. Afterwards, Horatio does not doubt Hamlet when he claims that the ghost seeks vengeance, nor that the phantom actually spoke to Hamlet. Horatio prompts for Hamlet to tell him the account of the conversation and afterward, he swears to keep the night a secret from all. These interactions provide evidence that Hamlet holds Horatio in high regard and that he trusts the other far more than any other.

Shortly after Hamlet’s famous “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy, he speaks to Ophelia. Here, he reveals that he does not love her, and it is not his imminent insanity speaking for him. At this time, he has neither inclinations of being spied upon, nor does he begin to truly act insane around the public. “Ophelia:  My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed to redeliver. I pray you now, receive them. Hamlet:  No, not I. I never gave you aught… That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty… for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness… I did love you once… You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish or it. I loved you not… to a nunnery, go” (Shakespeare, 2004, p. 169). This small portion of speech reveals that Hamlet does not, and has not for some time, loved Ophelia. This paves way to the theory that Hamlet many have held undisclosed desires for Horatio in place of Ophelia. In his soliloquy shortly before Ophelia enters, he compares her to a nymph. In Greek mythology, according to the Theoi Project, “Nymphs are represented in works of art as beautiful maidens, either quite naked or only half-covered” (2015). By referring to Ophelia as a nymph, he is ridiculing and insulting her. He is claiming her to be nothing more than an object of beauty, to be looked at and desired, but not posing any true love.  This lack of actual adoration towards Ophelia can lead one to believe that Hamlet was even jealous of her, perhaps. In _The Mystery of Hamlet, An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem by Edward Payson Vining_ , this very idea is discussed, “In the scene at Ophelia's grave, there is evidence of many other feelings ; but of love, none. He is stung by the knowledge that it is to him that Ophelia's death is owing, and stung by Laertes's curse upon him, but far more deeply is he chafed by the manly vigor of Laertes and his evident readiness to do instantly whatever fate may require of him. He feels that he himself has shown but scanty love for his murdered father, and has failed to fill the part that it was his duty to perform… All this occurs before Horatio, and it is partly the humiliation of feeling that Horatio may despise him when he compares him with Laertes, that leads to this wild outburst. If Hamlet be considered as in love with Horatio, his treatment of Ophelia is easily explained as caused by jealousy.” (Vining, 1881, p. 62). If this statement is true, then it makes his treatment of Ophelia all the more understood. It is not her that he loves, but Horatio. Hamlet feels threatened by Laertes’ ability to so easily defend those that he loves, in this case Ophelia, when Hamlet himself only has one person, Horatio, to confide in about his declaration of avenging his father.

Vining also points out that Hamlet speaks very affectionately of Horatio, but immediately tries to rebuke what he says, “His eulogy of Horatio in the third act is characterized by a warmth of fondness and admiration far greater than is natural between friends of the same sex… Then, fearing that fervor had led to protestation too strong, this evidence of feeling is suppressed” (Vining, 1881, p. 61). Hamlet’s eulogy reads, “Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal. Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself. Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee" (Shakespeare, 2004, p. 180). Hamlet is admitting to Horatio that it was his soul that choose the scholar for itself in this quote, and, as Vining stated, he quickly tries to make the admission seem as if it was unimportant. During his death scene, it is Horatio that Hamlet speaks too when he realises he has been cut by a poisoned blade. The conversation that follows reveals much about how Hamlet and Horatio feel for each other. “Hamlet:  I am dead, Horatio… Horatio, I am dead. Thou livest; report me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied. Horatio:  Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here’s yet some liquor left. Hamlet:  As th’art a man, give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, I’ll ha‘t! O God, Horatio… If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile. Horatio:  Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” (Shakespeare, 2004, pg. 370). In this scene, Horatio is willing to die alongside Hamlet, calling himself “an antique Roman”. In ancient Rome, suicide was considered an honorable death in the face of a dishonorable existence. For Horatio to consider his life dishonorable without Hamlet speaks much louder than any words could. Ancient Romans often had homosexual relations with each other, it was even encouraged. So, for Horatio to refer to himself as “an antique Roman” in the face of Hamlet as he dies, only proves further the idea that Hamlet and Horatio were harboring a relationship with each other.

Hamlet and Horatio were close friends, but after further examination, it is plausible that Hamlet and Horatio were in a romantic relationship. By analysing the way they speak to each other, the way Hamlet acts towards the cast compared to Horatio, and the way Ophelia was written in the story, it is possible to derive from _Hamlet_ that the two were lovers.

**Author's Note:**

> References:
> 
> Baldwin, C. (2015). Cecil Baldwin > Quotes > Quotable Quotes. Retrieved from: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6647207-whisper-a-dangerous-secret-to-someone-you-care-about-now
> 
> Shakespeare, W. (2004). Hamlet. Logan, Iowa: Perfection Learning Corporation.
> 
> Thoei Project. (2015). Nymphai. Retrieved from: http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/Nymphai.html
> 
> Vining, E. P., (1881). The Mystery of Hamlet, An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem.  
> Philadelphia: J.B. LIPPINCOTT & CO..


End file.
